Sunday, 12 February 2017

A couple of points regarding pricing

Another story, here, of a pharmaceutical company drastically increasing the price of its product.

Point 1: A patent is a government-granted monopoly. Since the monopoly is created by the government, one might reasonably expect it to be subject to government oversight, even if the business would not otherwise be.

Point 2: Note the company's defense. The product is widely available for FREE!-as-in-beer. For those with less-generous third-party payment plans, it's cheap! Nobody actually pays list price!

This reflects the corrupt pricing structures of the third-party medical payment system. Insane list prices exist so that the buying collectives can appear to get huge discounts. End users have no idea who's paying how much for what, nor who's subsidizing whom. Only those without a collective are faced with the staggeringly high list price.

And, one might expect, those without a collective tend to be poor, sick, and without political influence. Who cares about them?